London Open Update

The London Open runs from 28th to 31st December.
Watch the board 1 games live on Pandanet (IGS) - look for user LondonPGEC.

Don't forget that in addition to the London Open we're hosting the Man vs Machine Challenge match between John Tromp and the computer run by Darren Cook, starting on 28th December, to decide the winner of a $1000 bet made in 1997[1].

In 1997, when the strongest Go-playing programs were around 1-kyu, Darren Cook made a survey of Go programmers' and others' opinions on when a 1-dan program would first appear. John Tromp responded "I wonder if people would still make such optimistic estimates if they had to back it up with, say, a $1000 bet. I (dutch 1-kyu) would happily bet that I won't be beaten in a 10 game match before the year 2011".

Darren took him up on this bet. John and Darren have agreed that the bet is to be resolved on the last four days of December 2010, during and in the same building as the London Open Go Tournament.

The schedule, and the time limits, for the seven games will be exactly
the same as for the main human tournament of the London Open: 90 minutes
of main time, with Canadian overtime of 20 moves in five minutes. This schedule is:

TuesdayDecember 28th

14:30

Game 1

18:30

Game 2

WednesdayDecember 29th

10:00

Game 3

14:00

Game 4

ThursdayDecember 30th

10:00

Game 5

14:00

Game 6

FridayDecember 31st

10:00

Game 7

These times are given in GMT, also known as UTC.

The man-machine games will be relayed live on KGS[2]. To see them, connect to KGS, go to the English Game Room, and look for a game owned by user 'BGAmatches'.